I am Marilou Abanador, a G2A Villager and member of the Herbal Group. The coming of the Typhoon Ursula tested the capacity of the village and even the individual families to mitigate the effects of the hazard to our properties. The trainings, seminars and workshops came in handy while preparing for the typhoon. The initial report from the radio, said the intensity of the typhoon is only signal #2, which is usually a non-destructive level of wind and rain.
Despite these initial reports from radios and National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council alert messages the actual intensty of the typhoon when it re-routed and landed in Salcedo was already in category 3. Most of the families outside the village, were confident and busy with the preparation for Christmas eve. But my husband and I, focused on preparing for the typhoon. We secured our motorboat, tied it inside the mangrove area and detached the engine. My husband covered and nailed our windows with ply woods to protect us from the entry of wind and rain. He also cut the branches of our fruit trees to avoid falling branches hitting our roof, and to avoid the trees from being uprooted.”
According to Marilou, some of the residents who saw them preparing for the typhoon days before landfall, laughed at them by being overly prepared. “People were laughing at us, but we believe that in times of calamity, there is no harm by being overly-prepared”. After the typhoon, their house was hardly damaged, their extension needed minimal repair and their motorboat was saved.